Flyings

Last week, New York city balanced its bank account, discovered it had spent $243,430 since January, 1926, for welcomes to Distinguished Guests. Expensive guests: Lindbergh, Byrd, Chamberlin, $110,000; Koehl, Fitzmaurice, von Huene-feld, $60,000; Costes, Lebrix, $15,000. Official Welcomer Grover Whalen wrote Mayor Walker, diffidently: "It would seem opportune ... to raise the question as to how far ... the city should go." Recklessly, New York went ahead with plans to welcome "Lady Lindy," Pilot Stultz, Mechanic Gordon.

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Forced to land in the wilds, what will the prudent aviator rejoice if he has remembered, regret if he has forgotten? Pilot George H. Buck of Idaho, last week, prepared a list. Useful cargo: i carrier pigeon, i loaf of bread, i big knife, i canteen of water, i ham, i shotgun, i six-shooter, i axe, i motor generator to supply light.

Human beings, accustomed to the whir of airplanes overhead, remain calm, fail to tremble. Not so giraffes, zebras, sable antelopes, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses. Fearing these charges will dash themselves to death in their fright, Sol A. Stephan, manager of the Cincinnati Zoo (see p. 21), last week requested airport authorities to reroute all airplanes to avoid the zoo.

Captains Kubala and Idzikowski, Polish aviators who plan a non-stop flight from Paris to New York, desired a talisman of potency and might. They made supplication therefore to the Premier of Poland for permission to paint his name on their plane. Last week, Marshal Pilsudski graciously consented.

Famed as laundrymen, restaurateurs, Chinamen have not yet made their mark in aviation. But next month, Dr. Tien Lai Huang, "Chinese Lindbergh," hopes to take off for Hong Kong with a passenger, Anna May Wong, cinema star and daughter of a Los Angeles laundryman. And next month, Harry Rally King, Boston restaurateur, will tour the U. S. in a Pitcairn Mailwing to urge the cause of the Nationalists.

Chinamen in Boston, fired by the example of Patriot King, are rushing to Muller Field, newly opened airport. Nine young Nationalists have arranged for flying lessons. Burr Leyson, War pilot who taught Chinaman King, will sail in September to organize a Chinese air force.